Your prediction is probably correct, although it is possible they had a temporary site up and running for a few days to support demonstrations, but perhaps not. Even so I would tend to believe the frequency assignments are definitely not final.

As long as this Harris system is better than the current EFJunkson system, we'll be in good shape! I agree with you on the paging system, I'm lucky if it goes off when it's in my amplified charger which is connected to a dipole in my attic! It used to be the best sounding system in the area, now it's just pitiful.

I was traveling across the turnpike several years ago and was able to pickup dispatch as soon as i came out this side of the two tunnels using a vhf mobile. Thier signal strength always impressed me. i wonder just how bad it suffered now that its been narrowbanded.

The county has spent a significant amount of time and resources to re-align the microwave signal from each of it's tower sites. I have noticed a marked improvement on the 160.185 and 159.600 frequencies. Occasionally there is low audio on field units on the East/Central rebroadcast.

The pour audio quality and pager activation failures you'e experiencing in the county must have to do with simulcast multi-path or something, because I'm still copying 160.185 clearly (not as loud anymore) in York.

I know they've been working on the system, and I've noticed some improvement over the past week.

That said, I'd have my pager in the car at work, and not moving, and you'd hear the audio warble in and out on the pager, to the point where it would cut out (replay tells the truth). I could see that if I were moving, but stationary???

It may be the POS pagers they gave us. The Minitor 2's were great pagers, Why the Minitor 5's suck is beyond me. My Minitor 3 worked better than this thing.

Anyone know if Chesters new system will be phase 1, 2 or both?...also is there any advantage to 2 vs 1 since it seems like more places are headed in that direction.

Phase II (TDMA) systems are always capable of Phase I (FDMA) operation. The ability of a system to operate in TDMA (Phase II) mode depends on the physical hardware (infrastructure as well as radios) and the system programming on a per-talkgroup basis.

There is a significant advantage to Phase II TDMA, in that the voice channel capacity is doubled without having to add additional frequencies. With Phase I FDMA, a voice channel occupies the full bandwidth of a frequency. With Phase II TDMA, the voice channel is divided into two slots within a single frequency, so that a single frequency can handle voice traffic from two separate talkgroups simultaneously. A system that has 6 frequencies, for example, can only have 5 talkgroups active at the same time on a Phase I system (1 control channel + 5 voice channels), as opposed to 10 talkgroups active at the same time on a Phase II system (1 control channel + 10 voice channels/slots).

The article that was linked in the first post of this thread clearly states that it will be a Phase II system.

I was unable repeatedly to get the link to open on my computer so to verbally ask was going to yield a quicker answer. On systems that are fully phase 2, does the technology still allow for vhf repeaters of the system or would they be a thing of the past also?

Cross-links to other bands would be accomplished at either the console level (cross-patch) or at the hardware level (hardwire link). It doesn't matter whether the system uses FDMA or TDMA.

The most efficient crosspatching would retain the data protocol and not break down into baseband audio. Going down to baseband audio would be the sum of all distortion in the pathway between the original system and the secondary system, but retaining the protocol, the audio between the systems should sound seamless.